Hamlett Dobbins

i will have to tell you everything

Hamlett Dobbins has his first solo exhibition at David Lusk Gallery – Nashville this January. Dobbins’s show, titled I Will Have to Tell You Everything, continues his fifteen-year practice of using abstraction to detail his experiences with particular people and places.

As a child Dobbins used Legos to recreate moments that struck an emotional chord. The process allowed him to connect with these sensations in a tangible way, discovering truths behind once indescribable feelings. Through his painting practice Dobbins attempts to connect the raw, abstract emotions he experiences in interpersonal relationships, often titling his work with the initials of close friends and relatives who were part of the image event.

“I use painting to focus on an experience and to wrap myself in the moment. By building the experience with paint I begin to understand what about the moment moved me to paint in the first place.”

Dobbins’s large abstract paintings are explosions of color, shape and form, each based around moments where time slows and the artist feels a deep connection to the world. He refers to these as moments of “whole-body pleasure.” In the studio Dobbins works to break these moments into manageable parts, concentrating upon them to figure out what made the moment so magical. Each image speaks to a specific experience and a particular moment or person, generating a unique palette and set of parameters.

The title, I Will Have to Tell You Everything comes from a line in Genevieve Jurgensen’s book The Disappearance, that Dobbins heard on an episode of This American Life in the late nineties. This phrase has stuck with Dobbins, speaking clearly to his interest in articulating his experiences through paint, much like he did with Legos as a child.

Tennessee native Hamlett Dobbins received his BA in painting from University of Memphis and his MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. He was awarded the prestigious Rome Price in 2013 and is currently teaching full time at the University of Memphis.

David Lusk Gallery is located at 516 Hagan Street in Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 11-5. For more information or visuals please contact Amelia Briggs at 615.780.9990 or amelia@davidluskgallery.com